Watch: China’s Military Promotes New ‘Masculine and Vigorous’ Aerobics Routine

If you’re looking for your next exercise fix, skip the ab roller and yoga videos: The People’s Liberation Army has a new workout for you.

The freshly released five-minute set of calisthenics—which involves a series of shoulder rolls, energetic arm pumps, fixed-place hopping and a move vaguely reminiscent of the ‘80s-style Running Man—came in for lavish praise from China’s state media on Friday.

“It absorbs aspects of popular dance and Chinese tai-chi, as well as other factors. The content is novel and original; it has its own distinct style, and the movements are masculine and vigorous,” declared China’s military newspaper, the PLA Daily. The moves would be popularized throughout the army and armed police forces, the paper said.

Watch the PLA’s new ‘masculine and vigorous’ aerobics routine

The routine’s release is a timely one, coming amid reports that China’s army has been growing steadily pudgier. Last year, a physical survey of 20,000 ground troops found that the country’s typical GI Zhou was a good five centimeters wider around the waist than two decades ago.

A cheerfully-animated video was also released today depicting the new moves, which the PLA Daily described as intended to “increase the troops’ fighting strength” and bolster the PLA’s “special strong military culture,” the paper said.

The PLA has been on a drive to boost the “spiritual and cultural needs” of its ranks for some time now, and last year declared its intent to spend twice as much on musical instruments, jukeboxes and other equipment to entertain soldiers. It also puts on regular dance performances involving everything from glittering spandex ballet moves to full-throated operatic singing.

Government-backed mass calisthenics date back to Mao Zedong’s time, when the government promoted a workout full of kung-fu-type lunges and kicks, the better to train China’s proletariat in the fight against the capitalist West. Beijing has continued to promote state-backed workout routines in the years since, in an effort to combat the ill effects of the country’s increasingly sedentary lifestyles.